[And, another tid-bit as far as the current status regarding the
"scientific paradigm" regarding the Dogon, et al. --MS]
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
DID THE MAORI KNOW ABOUT THE RING OF JUPITER?
Sir,
Discussing the origin of the anomalously high astronomical
knowledge of the Dogon [1], it would be very important to search
for and, if found, to analyze similar anomalies in mythologies of
other peoples whose levels of cultural development are comparable
to that of the Dogon. In this connection I would like to draw the
readers' attention to a strange astronomical conception
discovered among the Maori, the native inhabitants of New
Zealand, by the ethnologist E.Best (1856-1931). They call one of
the planets that can be seen with the naked eye Parearau [2,
pp.43-44]. The structure of this word is rather intriguing: the
word pare denotes a fillet or head-band, and arau means
"entangled". "Her band quite surrounds her, hence she is called
Parearau", - say the Maori of this heavenly body, considering it
a companion or wife of Kopu Venus.
There is also another interesting statement: "That green-eyed
star is Parearau; that is the reason why she wears her circlet."
As E.Best indicates, one should see here a reference to the
mourning-cap or head-band formerly worn by widows of Maoriland.
So, which of the planets of the Solar system was designated by
the Maori as Parearau? E.Best gives us a straight answer to this
question: "Four old natives in different localities of the Bay of
Plenty applied the name to Jupiter."
However, in Best's time it seemed absurd to describe Jupiter as a
planet surrounded by a circlet. Probably, for this reason alone a
certain Stowell, whose words were cited by Best, believed that
Parearau was nothing but Saturn with its rings [2, p. 43]. Not
rejecting this interpretation on principle, Best put forward
another one: the word Parearau might designate the cloud belts on
Jupiter. This opinion was later supported by R.Collyns, a New
Zealander and author of several Ancient Astronaut books [3, p.
145].
Today we can however re-evaluate these data. What is of prime
importance, we can no more "fear" the idea of Jupiter surrounded
by a circlet. Jupiter's ring was discovered by the Voyager-1
space probe in 1979. Therefore there are at present no reasons to
doubt the identification of Parearau with this planet. Judging
from Best's book, the Maori were quite sure of that. For a
mythological-poetical mentality it would be quite natural to
consider Jupiter - the third brightest heavenly luminary in the
night sky after the Moon and Venus - as the "green-eyed" wife of
the latter. (The gender assignment of the planets is here
opposite to the "European" one.) On the other hand, when speaking
of Jupiter as Parearau (lit.: "entangled by a fillet"), the Maori
meant a ring rather than belts. Head gear is a separate object,
external in relation to the "head" ( = the planetary body). One
can suppose that if the Maori had wished to describe (in their
system of notions) Jupiter's cloud belts, they would have
compared them to their own custom of decorating the face with
colored patterns!
Now, everything seems to point to the fact that the Maori did
know about the ring of Jupiter. This knowledge is, however, more
anomalous than their supposed knowledge of Saturn's rings, and
even more anomalous than many components of the Dogon
astronomical lore.
Specifically, this fact cannot be explained away by the two
hypotheses that were suggested to cope with the "Dogon problem" -
the hypothesis of a primitive telescope [4] and that of a
European missionary enlightening this African people about modern
astronomy [5]. The Maori could not have seen the ring of Jupiter
even if they had invented a telescope - simply because the ring
cannot be observed from the Earth. As we know, it was discovered
using spacecraft. To learn about the ring from a civilized
traveller (say, from a missionary) would have been equally
impossible. E.Best completed his field explorations as early as
1911, devoting the next two decades to analyzing the collected
data and writing his monographs. At that period, science had no
idea of Jupiter's ring, even a hypothetical one. (A little-known
fact: the existence of the ring was predicted by the Ukrainian
astronomer S.K.Vsekhsvyatskiy, based on repeated observations of
a thin dark strip on the equator of Jupiter. Vsekhsvyatskiy
interpreted this strip as the shadow of Jupiter's ring. But this
happened only in the early 1960-s [6].)
All this suggests that the Maori could have obtained knowledge of
this ring only from another civilization, one that surpassed
mankind at least in the field of astronomy. Of course, to verily
this hypothesis, we need weighty additional data proving that the
New Zealand aborigines did in fact have contact with aliens. But
the sole possible alternative explanation would be the hypothesis
of a purely accidental coincidence between the mythological
notion of Parearau, and our present-day knowledge of Jupiter.
Such a possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, but to prove
this supposition, it would be necessary to show the way in which
the idea of Jupiter as "entangled" could have arisen in Maori
mythology. In short, the enigma of Parearau can be solved only by
a detailed professional investigation. Please consider this
letter as an appeal for such an investigation.
References
1. Moffett I.P. Ancient E.T. Contact Source of Dogon
Astronomical Knowledge? RIAP Bul-letin, 1997, Vol.3, No.3-4,
pp.4-il.
2. Best E. Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori Wellington,
1955. (Dominion Museum Mono-graph No. 3).
3. Collyns R. Did Spacemen Colonize the Earth? London:
Peiham Books, 1974.
4. Vasilyev V. Kosmicheskoye Oko Dogonov (The Space Eye of
the Dogons). Vokrug Sveta, Moscow, 1978, No.5, p.31.
5. Roxburgh I.W., Williams I.P. The Dogon Tribe and Sirius.
- The Observatory, 1975, Vol. 95, No. 1008, p. 215.
6. Vsekhsvyatskiy S.K. On Possible Existence of a Ring of
Comets and Meteorites around Jupiter. - Astronomicheskiy Zhurnal,
Moscow, 1962, Vol.39, No.2, pp.290-302.
- Yuriy N. Morozov, Ph.D.
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